Germanic umlaut

The umlaut is the name of the two small dots above the letters A, O, and U in German. Without umlauts those three letters are said [a], [o], and [u], but when the umlauts are put over them, Ä, Ö, and Ü the sounds change to be said like [ɛ], [œ]/[ø] and [y]/[ʏ]. When a word that has letters with an umlaut is changed into English, the letters are usually written as ae, oe, or ue instead of ä, ö, or ü.